herd vs posse

herd

noun
  • A crowd, a mass of people or things; a rabble. 

  • A number of domestic animals assembled together under the watch or ownership of a keeper. 

  • Any collection of animals gathered or travelling in a company. 

verb
  • To manage, care for or guard a herd 

  • To act as a herdsman or a shepherd. 

  • To unite or associate in a herd 

  • To move or drive a herd. 

  • To associate; to ally oneself with, or place oneself among, a group or company. 

  • To unite or associate in a herd; to feed or run together, or in company. 

  • To form or put into a herd. 

posse

noun
  • A group or company of people, originally especially one having hostile intent; a throng, a crowd. 

  • A group of people summoned to help law enforcement. 

  • A search party. 

  • A criminal gang. 

  • A group of (especially young) people seen as constituting a peer group or band of associates; a gang, a group of friends. 

How often have the words herd and posse occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )